A handsome collection of rare pin-ups from the late cartoonist who defined Betty & Veronica's look.

For nearly half a century, Dan DeCarlo was the Archie comic book artist. Credited with creating the all-girl band Josie and the Pussycats, DeCarlo's rendition of Riverdale's teenage populace entertained and influenced generations of young people as he guided the characters through their often goofy trials and tribulations. Without a doubt, however, DeCarlo is best known for defining the look of every adolescent boy's wet dreams, Betty and Veronica, with their trademark upturned noses, tight sweaters, and barely-there mini-skirts.

Next to the innocence that was Riverdale, however, and unbeknownst to many, DeCarlo also populated another world, which he filled with cartoons featuring girls in lingerie (and sometimes less), and often bearing an uncanny resemblance to his perennial blonde next door and rich-bitch socialite. From 1956 to 1963, DeCarlo produced hundreds of pin-up cartoons for the Humorama line of girlie digests, where his line drawings and exquisite ink-wash paintings shared the pages with Jack Cole, Bill Ward, and Bill Wenzel, and photos featuring Bettie Page.

Following The Glamour Girls of Bill Ward and The Classic Pin-Up Art of Jack Cole, Fantagraphics continues its dedication to showcasing the best of the classic pin-up cartoon artists. Culling through thousands of Humorama digests, Editor Alex Chun has selected the best of DeCarlo's ink wash pin-up work, with many featuring captions by Marvel Comics' Stan Lee. Along with collecting hundreds of long out-of-print images, the book also features an introductory essay by long time DeCarlo friend and current Bongo Comics creative director Bill Morrison.